Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus: Words and Concepts

Abstract

While a poet's words endure in his own language, even the greatest translation is destined to become part of the growth of its own language and eventually to be absorbed by its renewal. (Walter Benjamin, ‘The task of the translator’, in Illuminations , trans. H. Zohn (London, 1970)) Of the surviving Greek plays only Sophocles' Oedipus contains a major translation issue in the title. Most Greek tragedies are identified either through a direct transliteration, Hepta epi Thēbas , Trachiniai , Hiketides ; or through a latinised version Septem contra Thebas , Trachiniae , Supplices ; or anglicised to Seven Against Thebes , Women of Trachis (or Trachinians ), Suppliant Women (or Suppliants ). The comedies are much more variable with Ekklesiazousai known variously as Ecclesiazusae , Congresswomen , Women in Parliament , The Assemblywomen , The Women in the Assembly , Women in Charge and Women in Power . The Greek title for the Sophocles play is Oidipous Turannos , which appears in various translations as Oedipus Tyrannus, Oedipus Rex, Oedipus the King and Oedipus King of Thebes . It is the word turannos that is in question here. It can mean both more and less than ‘king’ or rex . It does imply ‘tyrant’, though not necessarily in a pejorative sense. A tyrant could be simply someone with absolute power, or part of the ruling family, or someone who had achieved the power of an absolute monarch by other than succession. Medea uses the word in the feminine to describe the princess whom Jason is going to marry without suggesting that Jason will end up as a henpecked husband.